The company that produced the M4 DD7 used by Salvador Ramos to kill 19 schoolkids and two teachers in Uvalde is marketing a new weapon right out of a mass shooter’s dream.
“More control, more comfort, more flexibility,” the Daniel Defense website says in introducing its latest product. “It’s what you get with our revolutionary RIII rifles.”
The site reports that the RIII’s lower receiver—its trigger and hammer assembly—is the “same you’ve come to love, trust, and expect from Daniel Defense, only now fully ambidextrous.” The major difference seems to be that the rail system—the sight and accessory mount—is both lighter and more durable.
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“The light-weight, heavy hitting RIII is ready for anything,” the company says.
As with its other AR-15 style rifles, the company appeals to the civilian couch commando by noting that its original rifle rail was “developed for SOCOM.” Implied is that you do not need to be told that SOCOM stands for Special Operations Command; their customers are supposed to be in the know.
At least Daniel Defense has been upfront about selling what are essentially military weapons of war to civilians. One of its ads features a photo of prone figures in combat gear who have apparently just been helicoptered into battle and now are peering down the barrels of their rifles.
“USE WHAT THEY USE,” the ad says.
The U.S. government does in fact use Daniel Defense rifle parts. The company started out making just rails and accessories and secured its first contract with SOCOM, specifically with the Navy SEALS, in 2005. The Department of Defense responded to a query about this and other contracts by referring the Daily Beast to the site usaspending.gov.
“The company has had several contracts across multiple agencies, including the DOD,” a defense spokesperson said.
The government spending website shows that Daniel Defense has had more than 100 government contracts with the Pentagon, the State Department, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The most recent was in March with the Navy, for $9.12 million in rifle parts.
But Daniel Defense has also invoked its military connections to feed civilian fantasies that can turn deadly. In March, gun-maker Remington’s appeal to the same vein of violent imaginings—”FORCES OF OPPOSITION, BOW DOWN. YOU ARE SINGLE-HANDEDLY OUTNUMBERED”—resulted in a $78 million settlement with the families of the 20 children and six adults murdered with one of its AR-15s at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.
A similar lawsuit is beginning to take shape in Uvalde, and Daniel Defense has already received a query from a survivor’s lawyer about its marketing. That would include a video on its website titled “The Next Generation Rifles DD4 RIII.”
The video begins with the click of a round being jacked into a chamber, followed by gunfire as a civilian in a plaid shirt blazes away with a Daniel Defense rifle on a range. A soundtrack somewhere between that of an action movie and a horror film continues playing as the video cuts to a man in a uniform such as a special forces operator or SWAT team cop might wear. He is sighting down a similar rifle, but is holding his fire as he steps deliberately forward. He proves to be just one of a squad of operators apartment advancing on an objective.
The video then cuts back to two other civilians, outdoorsy Alpha males carrying Daniel Defense rifles. They walk one behind the other and then side by side, bonded in the way of off-duty operators. One has a confident smile. The other is just supremely cool.
The pair then begins blazing away at the range. The cool one changes a magazine and resumes, just as the empty magazines indicate Ramos must have done while shooting youngsters in Uvalde.
The video then returns to the man in the plaid shirt seen at the beginning, firing as before. It closes with the man in the special operator/SWAT uniform, peering down the barrel of his Daniel Defense rifle. The last image is of him cradling the rifle, his hand in tactical gloves such as Ramos was wearing.
When The Daily Beast asked if the Pentagon was troubled by such use of military titillation to spur gun sales, a spokesman began by quoting a speech by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin gave at the Air Force Academy Graduation on May 25:
“I wish to extend my condolences and those of the entire Department to the people of Uvalde. All of us here today are moms and dads, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. And our hearts break for them and for the unspeakable grief that they are enduring. We cannot assuage that grief. We know that. But we can endeavor to keep them and the loved ones they lost close to our hearts and deep in our prayers. So today, we are all citizens of Uvalde.”
A worker helps prepare a Daniel Defense booth at the NRA convention in Indianapolis in 2019.
Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via GettyBut regarding Daniel Defense’s use of what is essentially gun porn to sell weapons of war to civilians, the spokesman said only, “As this company is not suspended or debarred, they are not prohibited from doing business with the federal government.”
In response to a similar query from the Daily Beast, a spokesman for ATF said, “We are unable to comment on any contracts ATF might have had in the past, currently, or in the future.” A State Department spokesperson said the issue of the Daniel Defense contracts is “a matter of laws that regulate access to weapons,”
“As there are ongoing investigations and Congressional review and deliberations, we have no further comments,” the spokesperson added.
The U.S. Marshals Service did not immediately respond. Daniel Defense also did not answer a request for comment.
As the Daily Beast has previously noted, Daniel Defense tweeted a photo of a youngster cradling one of its AR-15-style rifles on May 16, which happened to be Ramos’ 18th birthday. He purchased a Smith & Wesson M&P15 the next day. He subsequently made an online purchase of a more expensive DDM4 D7 via the Daniel Defense website. He left the Smith & Wesson behind when he charged into the school with the DDM4 D7, which the company terms “the perfect rifle.”
In the aftermath of the Uvalde killings, the company restricted its Twitter account, but the website remained open to all and continued to offer an array of AR-15-style rifles. The DDM4 D7 was briefly listed as out of stock, but the company did not respond to a query as to whether the weapon was sold out or had been withdrawn.
A day later, the rifle was back in stock at the same $1,870 price that Ramos paid on May 20. But as of Tuesday afternoon, only a slightly more expensive, copper-colored version was still available. The black one just like Ramos used was again out of stock.
But the RIII rifle is on the way for those who want control, comfort and flexibility such as any school shooter would love.
“Coming soon,” the website says.
